Re: DS DVD Collection 6, Disc 4 and Bathia Mapes

[Bob_the_Bartender]

Hey gang,

I happened to be watching the 1795 storyline flashback the other day on the above mentioned dvd, and I noticed during the famous DS scene, in which actress Anita Bolster, as Bathia Mapes, forgets her line of: "Then go to the house of the curse!," that MPI had apparently edited out actress Ms. Bolster's unfortunate faux pas.

On both the numerous, earlier PBS and the SCI-FI Channel broadcasts of "Dark Shadows," you can clearly hear the director (or some other member of the production crew) shouting that line to Ms. Bolster as both Louis Edmonds and Jonathan Frid, almost desperately, wait for her to tell Joshua Collins where to take the poor, cursed Barnabas to.  (Thankfully, Ms. Bolster's blooper has been preserved, no doubt, on thousands of DS videotapes across America and the world for posterity's sake!) 

It's kind of sad that future generations of DS fans (if they only watch the MPI dvds) will never get to hear, or possibly even be aware of, one of the show's classic bloopers on episode 451, which aired on March 18, 1968.  (I personally think that the Bathia Mapes blooper is "Dark Shadows'" greatest blooper, bar none.)

Ironically, during those 1795 episodes, MPI was not able to edit out actor Joel Crothers' two contretemps, when, as the dashing, but dastardly Lt. Nathan Forbes, Mr. Crothers had difficulty in placing his coat and hat on the Collinwood foyer table (without them falling off of the table) and also when he later stormed out of Collinwood in a rage, slamming the door behind him (only to have the door open up behind him, forcing him to turn and close the door extremely slowly!)  

Bob

[arashi]

I think they corrected this omittance in the new DVD set that came out? It wasn't MPI, if I recall, but the company to whom they sent the tapes out to be remastered.

[Joeytrom]

I never minded the removal of the blooper as it improves the scene, which is a very dramatic moment.  Some bloopers should be omitted.

[libshad84]

I agree with you Joeytrom. I know this is a hot-button here on this forum, but I feel that anything that can be done to "clean-up' bloopers without removing material(cutting tape), should be done.

But now this episode is available in both ways. Everybody wins!! 

[Bob_the_Bartender]

A number of years ago, I saw the great Dame Diana Rigg on Broadway in the play, "The Misanthrope" with her fellow British actor, Alec McCowen.


In the play, Dame Diana wore a red curly wig (so unlike her long, beautiful straight hair as Mrs. Peel on the great television show, "The Avengers").   Anyway, during a scene in a drawing room looking very much like the one in the great house of Collinwood, Mr. McCowen, while standing behind a seated Dame Diana, put his hands on her shoulders and accidentally pulled-up on her red Harpo Marx-like wig, forcing her to jump up from her chair to prevent the wig from coming off of her head, and resulting, with both Dame Diana and the audience erupting into uproarious laughter!   

The point I 'm getting at is that the extemporaneous bloopers are part of "Dark Shadows'" great charm.  At one of the Dark Shadows Festivals in California, the late, great Louis Edmonds once stood and received a standing ovation from the assembled Dark Shadows fans after his famous blooper was shown, in which he said to the late Joel "Joe Haskell" Crothers in the Collins Family Mausoleum that, "Many of my incestors are buried here."

Heck, I can vividly remember that great blooper, way back in 1969, when Charity Trask (a/k/a the reincarnation of Pansy Faye) walks into Charles Delaware Tate's art studio (which, incidentally, looked suspiciously very much like the Evans Cottage) and the window shade falls down after Charity/Pansy closes the front door with a bit too much authority!  (To their great credit, both Nancy Barrett and Roger Davis just kept right on acting as if nothing at all had just occurred.)


By the way, I know that MPI put a Dark Shadows Bloopers videotape a number of years ago.  Has MPI also put out a Dark Shadows Blooper dvd?

And, as the patrician Roger Collins once said to George Patterson (regarding Liz Stoddard's former fiancee, Jason McGuire): "Sheriff, I inshist that you arrest this man!" 

[arashi]

Yep, the Bloopers are on the Bloopers and Treasures DVD.

[Bob_the_Bartender]

Arashi,

Thanks for the information on the DS Bloopers DVD.  I understand that the dvd features much of what was on the blooper videotape with the addition of DS actors who appeared on such game shows as "The Dating Game."

Wouldn't it have been cool to have seen such DS favorites as Buzz Hackett, Nelle Gunston, the Eagle Hill Cemetery caretaker, Bathia Mapes and everyone's favorite interior decorator, Donna Friedlander, appear as guest contestants on "The Dating Game"?

Bob